The Bent Page

Here in Aruba, windmills will soon be turning. A friend and I headed to the south east side of the island where the foundations are now going in for some very large turbines that will soon capture the energy of the trade winds and turn it into electricity for the island. Here’s a look at how the foundations are built.

First, a site is excavated and a pad of concrete is poured with large rebar to tie it together with the next level of the foundation.

Then a cage of rebar is set up like this:

With the man standing on the left in the photo above, you get a sense of the scale of this structure. Finally, the concrete is poured around the rebar to complete the base, which looks like this:

Soon there will be towers standing atop these bases. Then will come the turbines themselves with their massive blades turning in the wind.

I can’t wait to see this project delivering power to the grid in Aruba. It will be a giant leap forward for the island.